Windows 7 - Shrink Volume

[Michael]

I just picked up a new laptop (Sony VAIO vpcf115fm) that came with Windows 7 pre-installed.
Sony left the OS on a lump-summed drive (no extra partitions, aside from recovery and a 100MB hidden partition).

I shrunk my main partition down to about 226GB (was 456GB) but there are unmovable files in the middle of the drive, so I can't shrink it any further from within Windows 7.

Is it still common practice to use GParted LiveCD to shrink the volume further?

Will I need a recovery/repair disc after shrinking it further using GParted? It didn't come with one, just the recovery partition..

Thanks in advance!

 

[Michael]

Nevermind. I dived in and did the following:

1.) Defragged C: (Windows 7 Partition)
2.) Command prompt -> Typed in CHKDSK /F /V /R C: -> Clicked 'Y' to set it up for the next boot
3.) Burned GParted to a disc
4.) Rebooted and ran from said disc
5.) Resized my partition to 100GB
6.) Rebooted
7.) CHKDSK ran and verified everything was good to go